Eyes Open hardly furthers Snow Patrol's rote one guitar attack, and repetition exposes Lightbody's interpretations of love's little hiccups as a tiring experience. [Jun 2006, p.108]

This Rev record is another triumph in which all is dream and this sometimes symbolism, the overall effect trippy, though less dark than of yore. [Oct 2008, p.102]

While brutally impressive, if it's subtlety you're seeking, look elsewhere. [Mar 2011, p.100]

11 songs thematically linked by a search for realty in an increasingly virtual world. [Sep 2018, p.90]

Its music delivered with an understated, glacial splendour. [Jan 2014, p.97]

Plenty of nightmare visions of Skid Row LA, but really no fun at all. [Jan 2013, p.93]

Its 11, quietly assured alt-rock growers let Ben Gibbard's appealingly detached vocals and quality-controlled lyrics do the heavy lifting. [Apr 2015, p.94]

Though the Vivs pride themselves on DIY charm, they're becoming scarily cogent. [May 2011, p.110]

More euphoric indie fits and starts from Hooray For Earth's Noel Heroux. [Mar 2016, p.100]

This muscular, everyman rock could have been produced at any time in the past 35 years, but has charm and character nevertheess. [Apr 2008, p.104]

Major General plough's The Hold Steady's punk-pop narrative furrow almost to the point of surrealism. [Sep 2009, p.92]

Amnesty's dark, metallic electro-pop creates an overwhelming Strum Und Drang. [Oct 2016, p.99]

The debut's sinister clouds are replaced by spry digital funk and studio sheen. [Mar 2014, p.96]

In Another World cleaves to the telegraphed, lighter-aloft choruses that make Cleveland and other places rock, a palpable Beatles influence pervading Quit Waking Me Up and So It Goes. [May 2021, p.81]

Frenetic take on Radiohead's Street Spirit aside, the tightly arranged songs here are pleasingly Queen, AC/DC, Lizzy and Leppard-aware. [Sep 2012, p.86]

Though Black Jesus and Graves To Dig weld slow-burning hip-hop beats to politically astute lyrics, elsewhere the abundance of self-conscious singing and menopausal guitar noodling sees the album shuffle, uninterestingly, towards the middle of the road.

[The Datsuns] do the rawk thing so well you can forgive them almost anything. [Dec 2002, p.106]

That voice remains intact, warm, ever communicative, ahead of the game. [Oct 2004, p.112]

This fluidity of their eighth album becomes a virtue for this project. [Nov 2011, p.93]

A New York studio may not be the ideal place to summon up the atmosphere of the Wild West, but these desperadoes on Barry Adamson's lable make a pretty good fist of it. [Dec 2009, p.101]

Just in time for autumn, more summery surf rock by Hawaii's second favorite son. [Oct 2013, p.98]

The Posies [are] now a surprisingly politicised act. [Aug 2005, p.104]

Shimmering, lounge-pop gives a velvet backdrop to fluent, Dylan-ish vernacular sung with flawless mitteleuropa cool. [May 2017, p.98]

There's a Prince influence, but little real passion. [Nov 2013, p.94]

True, there are some facinating arrangements on songs written during a summer in Berlin. But those songs, bar the first and last track sound oddly wanting. [Sep 2008, p.108]

See them A Come and band original Open Goal here could both date from that time [1980].... The rest of Subculture spreads the net wider though. [Jul 2015, p.93]

They explore the tricksy time signatures and artful insouciance of Deerhoof or Tortoise with aplomb. [Sep 2016, p.99]

Imposter, if not essential, always ring true. [Jan 2022, p.83]

The glitchy electronics hard shield his soulful voice, but on tracks like Corner the digital pulse yields more human warmth. [Sep 2015, p.95]

Pale and pensive indie-pop, cooled to a chill, with [lead singer] Nouvion floating over a similarly tranquil, dreamy wash, like an American Sundays. [Apr 2012, p. 90]

Right On! seesaws between spectral moments of introspection and bristling passages of electric activity. [Jan 2016, p.88]

Gorgeously sweaty in its simplicity. [May 2005, p.103]

With more hits than misses, Shadow is back in the frame. [Aug 2016, p.95]

Marc Rigelsford's second LP basks in at-home production warmth. [Jul 2013, p.96]

Technically striking, yet for all its precision sounds oddly sanitised. [Jan 2017, p.104]

Fire It Up is a slow burner. [May 2021, p.80]

For every glimpse of a hook or a memorable melody, there's a stretch of unfocused, sample-strewn electronica, all skittering art-techno beats and wilfully obtuse instrumentation. [Nov 2007, p.95]

Some of the best covers here are of less overtly politicized Dylan songs. [Feb 2012, p.95]

William Bensussen mashes up cavernous hip hop beats, 8-bit electronica, West Coast psych and glitch. [Oct 2012, p.95]

It's an honourable outcome for such overreaching ambition to fall inevitably short, but not flat on its face. [Oct 2003, p.110]

At points UNKLE verge on Moby car advert territory, but judicious sampling and that deadpan sci-fi spirit keep the album the right side of experimental. [Sep 2003, p.113]

Very promising young London singer. [May 2014, p.96]

The sumptuous How Soon The Dawn and gently rcok'n'rolling I Can Burn shine. [Oct 2017, p.98]

A confidently tuneful if nostalgic set. [Aug 2020, p.87]

Their music palette may be limited but their style knows no bound. [Dec 2016, p.92]

An album that nails its subtle-but-tenacious hooks with dignity and maturity. [Nov 2004, p.94]

Filled with tearful ballads and ragged-trousered country, the Avetts' playing may not be the most technically accomplished but the feel they bring to Never Been Alive and Another Is Waiting is alone worth wading through their previously misfiring albums. [Jan 2014, p.96]

Reveals another eclectic, kaleidoscopic world. [May 2005, p.106]

We get strings, care-worn piano, and lots of subtle detail, the last deepening the listener's relationship with the excellent, lyrical mature songs over repeat plays. [Mar 2011, p.97]

Not a bad song on the album. [Oct 2013, p.96]

When harnessed, Taylor Hawkins' energy is the right stuff. [Jan 2020, p.85]

Foster[s] a reflective, bonfire-on-the-beach spirit. [May 2021, p.88]

Even the Hey Jude-y crowd singalong works. ... The album as a whole also has a coldness that threatens to undermine the point that Everything Now strives to make. [Sep 2017, p.87]

Innovative it ain't. [Jan 2006, p.132]

Profoundly disappointing. [Jan 2005, p.105]

As an experiment in revisionism, the results are mixed. [Nov 2012, p.85]

Nobody expected him, at 65, to be the street-walking cheetah of '73, rather just to raise his game, to try and bring that corrosive voice forward, commensurate with his age, the 2010s and, dammit, The Stooges. In short: he hasn't. [Jun 2013, p.87]

His throaty, gnarled vocals--best showcased on the meandering, Dilla-esque Cloudlight--lend his music a gothic mood. [Nov 2010, p.109]

It's difficult to ignore Total's hoovering synths, filtered drums, glam rock rhythms and punkish snarl, such is its fizzing energy. [Jul 2011, p.115]

Closer in quality to [his] five immeasurably influential '70s standard-bearers than anything from Wonder's '80s or '90s catalogue. [Dec 2005, p.102]

It is her once feral voice, now markedly more controlled, which proves most impressive here. [Jun 2012, p.88]

Young, smart, pissed-off, ultra-basic, but also competent and powerful, these youngsters fire off brisk, bubblegum tunes in proud thrall to Da Brudders, and, by extension, girl-groups of the '60s. [Dec 2009, p.96]

Explores Incubus' inner jam band. [Feb 2004, p.94]

No one's about to mistake them for Sonic Youth, but the sheen of easy listening has been stripped away, and they sound all the better for it. [Oct 2008, p.110]

The group's double-messages coalesce most finely on the few occasions they pause for ballads, like th aching I Can Change. But the nostalgic melodicism, and relentless pep, of the rest will thrill even those who miss what lies below. [Jun 2018, p.91]

Just as you're thinking "so far, so generic," they wrong-foot you, as their debut album starts to incorporate seemingly random elements of knock-kneed white reggae, snotty hardcore punk and snatched bar conversations. [Mar 2014, p.94]

It is Kweli's diligently intelligent worldview, dextrous wordplay and often breathtaking flow that enrapture. [Jan 2005, p.96]

What, on the face of it, is an understated and straightforward folk fringe album, is actually, thanks to the guile of Flynn and long-time collaborator Adam Beach, an extremely clever and nuanced record. [Nov 2013, p.84]

Hymns is worthy if never quite stratospheric heir. [Feb 2012, p.102]

With songs of fake rock 'n' roll, magical dogs, lost minds and love, this is pop with wobbly wheels and new found joy and optimism. [Dec 2009, p. 95]

Yet for all Doseone's phantasmagoria and keening schizophrenia, there's a melodic richness that miraculously sculpts order out of the panicked disco chaos. [Aug 2012, p.85]

It's a unified listen: it works as an album. [Sep 2012, p.102]

Heavy on atmosphere, but candid and brave also. [Aug 2015, p.98]

The glossy, high-shine finish songs come with an air of post-club languor. [Dec 2012, p.96]

Houston has delivered an album that, despite a few middling tracks, is genuinely moving. [Nov 2009, p.95]

With the group of temporary hiatus, Ounsworth spreads his wings here, delivering a solo set that combines his gift for melody with more adventurous instrumentation and stylistic detours, waltzing between deft piano balladry (Holy, Holy, Holy Moses), high-drama orchestral-pop (That Is Not My Home), and lilting, horn-bolstered calypsos (South Philadelphia Drug Days) with grace, confidence and wit. [Jan 2010, p. 90]

The New Yorkers' debut is retro but refreshing. [Dec. 2010, p. 106]

Mostly, a terrific piece of work. [Nov 2003, p.120]

In places it verges on doodling, as if Barnett is endlessly tuning her guitar, but tracks such as Intro or Tiver sound darkly majestic, like deep, drifting hollowed-out Americana. [Oct 2023, p.78]

foon's USP here is her voice, an instrument of somnolent, gossamer allure which floats gracefully, if opaquely, amid the eddying, amniotic music. [Jul 2013, p.92]

Musical Pop Art has seldom been as good. [Apr 2015, p.88]

The standout is a take on Nothing Compares 2 U, Prince's adroit vocal melody a showcase for Cornell's affectionate, bluesier reading. Elsewhere, Harry Nilsson's Jump Into The Fire is toughened-up and much abridged. [Apr 2021, p.80]

They sound a bit tired. [Sep 2004, p.98]

Canadian duo's smooth blend of yacht rock, disco, Rick James funk and late-90s French house with lyrics that aim to pastiche modern R&B tropes. [Jun 2014, p.98]

All told, it sounds a bit like a band searching for a new direction, and while they don't always find it, it's a worthwhile endeavour either way. [June 2008, p.106]

It's an appropriately trying listen, far removed from 2010's relatively mannered debut. [Sep 2016, p.92]

This is a swaggering, unashamedly fun pop record. [May 2005, p.94]

Dig Out Your Soul might not be the sound of envelopes being pushed, but its mix of kitchen-sink production and too many vague songs mark a deviation from business as usual that ultimately fails to deliver. [Nov 2008, p.105]

The follow-up to 2003's "The Diary Of Alicia Keys" has lots of confidence and volume, but less of the shades in between. [Dec 2007, p.98]

It's the record that regular Krall devotees demand. So is it churlish to suggest that she's capable of something more? [Oct 2006, p.111]

Her music mostly comprises ordinary, though precisely crafted, acoustic arrangements and plaintive-lite laments regarding absent lover. [Dec 2009, p. 92]

In its early stages, Joy feels not at all slight, dashed-off or inferior, launching out on a series of acoustic-rattling, inescapably Syd-Barrett-esque pop tunes whose wonky brevity is a virtue. [Sep 2018, p.93]

It's a labyrinthine 64-minute journey, bound together by a group identity that gains clarity with every listen. [Jun 2012, p.80]

They may be musical magpies but what they build from their stash is gold. [Oct 2012, p.95]

Though the sound remains dreamy, it's expansive; the melodic songs have a feeling of joy. [Oct 2009, p.101]

It's still summer music, but The Only Place captures that moment when it's time to wrap a cardigan around your shoulders against the chill. [Jun 2012, p.83]

An enfolding, transcendent work of aural theatre tracking Artaud's journey. He would probably have approved. [Jun 2019, p.94]

They scrunch together Animal Collective-style off-kilter tech pop, new wave, ghetto bass and even twisted tango. [Jun 2011, p.97]